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"The most successful trilateral conference in 29 years"

11 November 2011

With the launch of a new free-of-charge information
service from which patent offices and users alike will benefit, the 29th Annual
Trilateral Conference of the EPO, the Japan Patent Office (JPO) and the United States
Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) opened a new era of advancing patent
harmonisation across the globe.

Originally spurred by requests from industry representatives,
the Common Citation Document (CCD) fills an important gap in the information
services for the public and IP authorities by offering a one-stop overview of
all documents cited by the EPO, JPO and USPTO in the search process for
applications for the same invention pending simultaneously at the three
offices.

"It is a milestone achievement in our co-operation, and
proof of the immediate benefit the user community and the public can derive
from the close co-operation of our three offices," EPO President Benoît
Battistelli said at the closing of the conference hosted by the EPO in Saint-Germain-en-Laye
near Paris on
7-10 November.

Significant progress was made in all projects ranging from technical
standards, statistical reports and discussions on patent law issues to moving
to finalising the report on differences in examination. Moreover, the three offices
agreed to prolong the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) agreements in relation to
work done on PCT- and Paris-route applications, and also to improve on
user-friendliness and pending times and conduct a study on quality in PPH
procedures: all further requests voiced by representatives of the trilateral
industry associations participating in the Trilateral User Day on 9 November where
they shared their views on the projects pursued by the Trilateral Offices.

"The meeting with the users is very meaningful because it
confirms that the three offices are going in the right direction, as their
strong approval of the CCD clearly demonstrates," said JPO Commissioner Yoshiyuki
Iwai. "This will boost our work."

Looking to future activities, the three heads of office also
indicated that many of their joint projects, including the CCD and statistical
reports, will need to be expanded to the IP5 co-operation to also include China
and South Korea: "We need to graduate these items to IP5 level to offer
room for new projects in our trilateral co-operation," said, citing improvements on the PCT as a subject for attention:
"Addressing PCT questions both at agenda-setting and implementing level is
a priority in the next months."

While moving trilateral projects to IP5-level will certainly
free up capacity on their joint agenda, the Trilateral Offices recognised the
need for a dedicated long-term planning of their activities of up to seven
years in order to achieve measurable results and enhanced public visibility of
the results of their co-operation. They concluded that, after all, co-operation
between the EPO, JPO and USPTO remains pivotal for progress in patent
harmonisation at the global level.